Operator profile: Barista and Beyond

Henry Norman speaks to Jonathan Holley, managing director of Ways into Work, about Reading’s new Barista and Beyond café, which has been opened specifically to provide opportunities for people with disabilities...

While we try to cover out of home outlets of all kinds in these articles, when I hear of an endeavour of an altruistic nature, they usually move quickly to the top of the list. Not only does it seem right to throw our weight behind these kind of causes, but they are also usually run by extremely impressive people with much to say on an important and interesting subject.

Alongside this, one of the biggest topics we have been covering in recent years has been the lack of skilled workers in hospitality and how to solve this shortage.

Bearing all this in mind, when I first heard about the opening of the impressive Barista and Beyond project in Reading, it was immediately clear that we needed to cover its impressive work.

The café was set up specifically to introduce people with disabilities to hospitality, with the aim of ‘changing lives one job at a time’. Not only that, but all of the profits generated are used to support more individuals with disabilities who want to gain employment.

This café concept is a new approach for Ways into Work, a not-for-profit that has been tackling this problem from a number of different angles since it was set up by the local council back in 2015 (see box). It has established some impressive partners in that time, with the launch being supported and attended by large organisations such as Thames Valley and Berkshire Local Enterprise Partnership, New Directions College, Reading and John Lewis, as well as the mayor and local community councilors.

I took the opportunity to speak to the man behind it all, Jonathan Holley, managing director of Ways into Work, whose background is actually in IT and building businesses. However, more recently he decided that he wanted to give something back and took on the interim managing director role last May when the previous MD went on maternity leave.

“Ways into Work was set up eight years ago by the local council with the fundamental core aim of helping get those with disabilities into proper employment,” he explains to me, as I ask him about the bigger picture. “The idea is that you’ll get a proper paid job at the end of it.

“We deal mostly with learning disabilities, people on the autism spectrum and those with mental health challenges. I think people these days are more familiar with physical disabilities, because of the Paralympics and so on. There’s much more awareness, but not for those other disabilities, which are invisible to most people.”

The stats so far are certainly impressive. Not only does the organisation currently have approximately 540 “clients”, as Jonathan calls them, on its books, but it has previously gotten over a thousand people into employment. “We also support them once they have a job,” he is keen to add. “Most councils, the government will pay us to get people into work, they don’t pay to keep them in work, so we provide ongoing support as well.”

The move into the out of home arena, Jonathan says, has only been a recent one. “The idea was, wouldn’t it be fantastic if we could train people and have somewhere for them to get their work experience,” he says, “and that was how the café was born. My predecessor liked the idea of a quality café, so that people can see that people with disabilities can work in a quality service environment.

“It works as a showcase and provides a place where people with disabilities can get work experience, internships and a job. Also, it makes money so we can use the funding to help more people.”

The café is clearly a perfect environment, as we have seen from previous initiatives, to cover off so many angles like this. However, Jonathan is particularly keen on getting the staff centre stage to demonstrate to other businesses that they too can take on staff with these kind of disabilities.
“The other bit of the equation is we have to encourage employers to take these people on, that’s of huge importance,” he emphasises. “We have to say to them, ‘It’s not a burden, it’s going to be fine’. So, part of this was to create the employer type of angle, because the showcase element is so important.”

With so many hospitality businesses being desperately short of staff, I put it to Jonathan that surely this is the perfect time for them to start taking on more workers of this kind. “Well, that’s exactly it,” he says. “I use that as the message when I am doing public speaking.

“The challenge, though, is to get people to wake up and accept that these people with disabilities can contribute and aren’t a burden on their businesses, because that’s what they fear. So, even when they can’t get people, it still takes a lot of persuasion. That’s probably one of the most important things: to convince employers that this works.”

It sounds like such an incredible opportunity for the industry that I finish our illuminating chat by asking Jonathan whether, looking to the future, Ways into Work will consider opening further outlets. “The intention is that we will open more cafés,” he says. “We are in an area where the footfall is a little bit challenging, so we are working on schemes to increase this and get to a point within 18 months where we are turning a profit. However, Barista and Beyond is already achieved many of its goals.”

The bigger picture
The altruistic organisations that are behind the opening of the new café...

Barista and Beyond is the first café that has been set up by Ways into Work, a majority employee-owned, not-for-profit community interest company delivering supported employment services across Berkshire, Hampshire and Oxfordshire. Ways Into Work aims to inspire and support the business community to help realise a society where equal opportunities and life chances exist for everyone.

Berkshire Local Enterprise Partnerships plays a pivotal role in determining and addressing local economic priorities. It has been instrumental in providing financial support to Ways Into Work and the setting up of the café.

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